As a start-up, it can be easy to get stuck in the day-to-day running of your business. Organising and operating a small business keeps you extremely busy, especially if you are the only employee. However, whilst having lots of work to do is usually a good sign of business growth, it’s still important to keep the future in mind and have a solid plan in place for growing your new business venture.
Start-ups are extremely fragile creations. Whether you’re trying to make it as a freelancer or already have a growing team under your belt, all it takes is a small downturn in business and things can fall apart. That’s why taking some time to plan how you will reach the next level is not just valuable, it’s essential.
In this post, we want to explore three steps worth considering if you want to turn your start-up into a small-to-medium enterprise. Unfortunately, there is no predefined recipe for business success, especially considering how much different industries vary. However, we have made sure to pick out universally useful steps that should be able to benefit you no matter what stage your business is currently at. Let’s begin.
Create Comprehensive Procedures
Many of the largest companies in the world are built upon a foundation of clear, efficient procedures. Amazon and McDonald’s are brilliant examples of this, with their systems operating under predefined, detailed processes that illustrate what employees must do at every stage.
Procedures are effective for three primary reasons. The first is, of course, efficiency. If you can outline exactly how to get the most from your time and space, then incorporate this into a procedure, it becomes significantly easier to optimise the use of your time. This is fundamental for start-ups where time is even more valuable.
The second major advantage of procedural work is that it is measurable. Understanding where time is spent within your customer journey, as well as how much your employees are able to do within a predefined period, is invaluable for further optimising your business operations. With procedures, every aspect of the business machine can be quantified and tracked, enabling problem areas to be more easily analysed and improved upon.
Finally, it is much easier to train and prepare new employees if your business has clear and defined processes. The biggest issue for many start-ups is that new staff take a long time to absorb the organisation’s way of working, particularly if it involves an innovative new system. Creating a process guide for each major procedure allows new team members to effectively learn new techniques without a problem.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when discussing the value of procedures. Without a doubt, they make a huge difference in many start-up businesses and should almost always be considered as a step forward.
Find A Dedicated Workspace
Many start-ups, especially those without investor funding, operate out of homes, garages and basements. Whilst this does get the job done, creating a cohesive, company-focused working environment is important for reaching the next step. Not only does a dedicated office or workspace make communication between staff more effective but it also increases credibility by giving your business its own address and details.
Many small business owners struggle to move forward into this step because they feel obliged to purchase a property outright, however, there are other options. Renting office space has become increasingly common for start-ups and small organisations, helping them reach the point necessary to acquire their own property.
As always, do research in your local area to discover the opportunities available and then work from there. Never overextend your budget and always plan ahead.
Learn Marketing Or Hire A Marketing Specialist
Finally, yet arguably most importantly, learn how to market your business effectively. Marketing skills range from being able to pitch your business effectively through to digital marketing techniques like Search Engine Optimisation and social media advertising. Depending on your business and sector, certain marketing methods will work better than others. Mastering these systems and tools so that you can optimise your marketing efforts and improve return on investment is fundamental for business growth.
Even if you opt to hire a marketing specialist to do these things for you, gaining an understanding of how they work and how different platforms impact your business is still great knowledge to have.
Conclusion
Using these three ideas, you should be significantly closer to taking your start-up to the next level. As always, adapting tips and tricks to your industry and business is a delicate art but worth the effort if it has a notable impact on overall growth and success. Don’t be afraid to take the next step.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about the next steps that every startup should consider when building their new business.
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